Posted on 11/19/24
| News Source: Newsweek
The United States has removed its remaining aircraft carrier in the Middle East, a report said on Monday, concluding its surge deployment amid tensions between Israel and Iran.
USS Abraham Lincoln, one of 11 aircraft carriers of the U.S. Navy, has left the Middle East and entered the Seventh Fleet's area of operations, which covers the Western Pacific Ocean and the Eastern Indian Ocean, according to the U.S. Naval Institute's USNI News.
The "flattop" has been operating in the Middle East since late August, when the Pentagon retasked it from its scheduled Seventh Fleet's deployment. Its sister ship, USS Theodore Roosevelt, was also in the region for a surge deployment from mid-July to mid-September.
The departure of two aircraft carriers leaves a "carrier gap" in the Middle East. This is the second time the U.S. military has no aircraft carrier in the region since June when USS Dwight D. Eisenhower ended its combat operations and left for the Mediterranean Sea.
The White House issued a warning last week, which said threats posed by Iran and its associated militia groups to Americans and U.S. interests in the region is "the most immediate issue."
On Monday, Abbas Araqchi, Iran's foreign minister, has vowed to attack Israel in response to its October strike "at the right time." Israel launched an airstrike on Iranian military targets in response to Tehran firing around 200 ballistic missiles against Israel.
While underway in the Gulf of Aden on November 9 to 10, the Abraham Lincoln sent its combat aircraft, including the stealthy F-35C fighter jets, for airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels' facilities in Yemen that housed their weapons, including antiship missiles.